The Elusive Language of Ducks

by Judith White

  The Elusive Language of Ducks

  Judith White is a winner of the BNZ Katherine Mansfield Centenary Award, and twice-winner of the Auckland Star Short Story Competition. Her short-story collection, Visiting Ghosts, was shortlisted for the New Zealand Book Awards, and her first novel, Across the Dreaming Night, was shortlisted for the Montana New Zealand Book of the Year. She lives in Auckland, New Zealand.

  The Elusive

  Language

  of Ducks

  JUDITH WHITE

  A Oneworld Book

  This ebook edition published by Oneworld Publications, 2014

  First published in North America and Great Britain by Oneworld Publications, 2014

  First published in Australia and New Zealand by Random House New Zealand Ltd, 2013

  Copyright © Judith White 2013

  The moral right of Judith White to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act 1988

  All rights reserved

  Copyright under Berne Convention

  A CIP record for this title is available from the British Library

  ISBN 978-1-78074-400-1

  ISBN 978-1-78074-401-8 (eBook)

  Text design by Megan van Staden

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organisations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events of locales is entirely coincidental.

  Oneworld Publications

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  For my mother, Beth Featherstone

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Acknowledgements

  Prologue

  SALT

  Drunk.

  Yesterday, your mother died and now you are drunk.

  You were both there and it was the salt that you had always refused her because you thought it was bad for her health, and now it was keeping her alive through the slow saline drip into her arm, and then the doctor said, No more salt.

  It was time. You knew that.

  The doctor insisting on plunging his oar into the deep, deep sea of your sorrow.

  I’m going to have to turn this off now.

  That’s fine, we know what’s going on. Now go away.

  Already it had started. The breathing. The stopping and the starting of it.

  The stopping and now not daring to look at each other. Then, as you sat by the bed, you read in the little handbook they gave you in that special hurried meeting in the office of the Primrose Hill Rest Home that, sometimes, towards the end, the period between breaths could be between ten and thirty seconds.

  And yes, counting in your head, it was ten to thirty seconds, ten minutes to thirty years, as you waited for the next one.

  And then the stopping and it was

  Now.

  And then the big heave so that you jumped, jumped out of your skin. And, only just, back again.

  But . . . the silence and the waiting for the next one, the next breath. Mum.

  Mummy?

  The silence that was so silent, and afterwards your husband spoke to you about the great swirling wind, the great swirling

  The great swirling outside and the leaves

  And you didn’t hear it, all you heard was the silence, your mother’s breath stopped . . . the chatter stopped

  And then

  You put your hand on her chest and there was nothing there at all

  Just the buttons of her nightie and no thump of a clock

  Her breasts flattened into skin over bone

  And then all the colour that was her life going away. Her lips white and her mouth open

  And her cheeks whitening

  And everything draining away.

  The colour that she would have had a name for, in all its tones. Raw sienna, cobalt violet, ultramarine blue, Windsor yellow, cadmium orange, permanent mauve, etc, etc. You have no idea, really. The colours she squeezed from aluminium tubes, sloshed around with camel-hair brushes before she dabbed and made her magic.

  All the colours that she absorbed through her eyes and interpreted and played with on canvas.

  All the colour in her eyes.

  Gone from her.

  It’s all so final, says old Joyce afterwards, in the lounge when you say goodbye to the others in their bucket seats who are waiting their turn.

  But really it’s all so now and everlasting, the life without her

  The life without your mother.

  And now you are drunk because you don’t know what else to do with the thoughts in your head.

  AFTERWARDS

  And you bring out the boxes from under the house and go through her clothes and fill the car boot with them and take them to the Salvation Army. And you can’t help yourself picking up objects that are too deeply connected to this time or that time and, inside your chest, a snake of pain grows too fat for the cavity it has found there; it has swallowed its own tail, and everything that follows is too big for its stomach. It has opened wide jaws and engulfed your life and down you flow into the tight darkness of the beginning and the end.

  DOING THE TRICK

  And as if it will make up for it all, they bring to you, as an offering, a baby duck.

  Your husband’s relations have a small farm in Te Awamutu. On one of his missions to the area, a business meeting in Hamilton, Simon had driven down to have lunch with his aunt and uncle. He told you that he’d had no say in the matter, but in fact he could have said no. That would have been the ultimate no say. His meeting was after the lunch in Te Awamutu and he had to stay in Hamilton overnight. He had excuses. But he explained to you that the duckling was waiting for him in the hard-based plastic carry-bag. All ready for the journey back to Auckland. A container of mucky mash for food, and a lid holding water.

  They were well-meaning, and it could have done the trick. Every passing day had become a slushy footprint in mud. You were depressed, they said. You were not yourself. You seemed withdrawn. The duck was an orphan; it would die anyway. Everybody was worried about you. They thought a duckling would help. They thought a yellow fluffy duckling pooing and skittering around the wide well-worn seat of your mother’s throne would give you something to think about. Is that the trick they had in mind? The one up the sleeve, the sleight of hand. From woe to go, just like that.

  Chapter 1

  THE GARDEN PATH

  Sitting in the grass in the spring sunshine. Somewhere nearby a starling was munching on a song, savouring every whistley morsel before
spitting it out for inspection in long chewing-gum threads.

  The duckling was lying with its head resting on Hannah’s ankle. Her other foot contained it in a safe haven. It appeared happy to be there. She wondered whether it thought it was a foot, or whether her feet were ducks.

  It had been lumbered upon her; there was no doubt about that. When her husband had arrived home from Hamilton, several weeks ago now, he had hesitantly made his way down the garden path as she greeted him from the front door. He was carrying a bright orange carry-bag with a hard base, rather like a doctor’s medical bag, full of quackery. He’d opened it, less than triumphantly, for her to see inside.

  From the start she’d been aware of the whole projected scenario, the band-aid for the gaping wound. It did not stick. It somehow marginalised her grief.

  And what are you going to do with this? she’d asked her husband. She closed herself tight against the chirruping fluff skittering in the straw.

  It’s for you. From Claire and Bob.

  I don’t want it. I don’t want another creature to look after.

  That’s OK. I thought you might say that. Don’t worry, it was going to die anyway, it’s been abandoned. But what shall we do with it?

  It smells revolting, she said.

  I know, I . . . it’s been running around in its mess since yesterday morning. And the water has sloshed everywhere.

  Turning, she went inside. From the bedroom her mother called to her. No, she didn’t, but always there was the echo of her voice lingering there, hovering in Hannah’s head like wind chimes, waiting for the right breeze to knock a memory resonating into life.

  She passed through the hall, through the sitting room and out to the deck where she leaned on the railing, staring across the valley. The magnolia tree beside her, winding across the deck, was just sneaking into leaf. They’d lived in this same house for twenty-two years, on the quarter-acre section in a hilly suburb near the centre of the city. The area used to be a patchwork of sections the same size as theirs, houses surrounded by daisy-dotted lawn stretching from fence to fence, with paths from the road to the houses framed by flowers. Over-laden plum trees had provided for sauce and jam, gorging kids, rows of preserving jars in wash-houses, and still there were plenty of plums for the birds. Lemon and grapefruit trees, heavy with balls of juice, grew in sunny corners. Neighbours talked over the fences and shared produce from their vegetable gardens, squared out at the bottom of the sections.

  Now they were crammed in by apartments, town-houses and palatial new villas which, from time to time, sprouted a shroud of white plastic, like nursery-web spiders in a hedge, to allow workmen to repair leaks from poor construction. Video cameras surveyed properties. Alarms, like frightened birds, spasmodically startled the peace. Generally, there was no communication amongst the neighbours. Hannah and Simon used to be more than friendly with Eric, the man next door, but recently even he had withdrawn. And his music, which used to thread so enticingly from his house to theirs, had stopped.

  Hannah.

  An alarm, startling her. Simon had followed her to the deck, was standing beside her.

  She’d placed her head into her cupped hands.

  Hannah.

  I don’t want a duck. I don’t want anything.

  I know. I’m sorry. Come inside. I’ll get rid of it.

  How can you just get rid of it? I’m not pregnant. This creature has been born.

  He’d stood there helplessly. He pitied her, she could see that. But she was pushing him, nudging him away from her, forcing him right up to the edge of the cliff. She was the last straw in a duckling’s carry-bag.

  Where did you put it?

  On the front lawn.

  On the lawn? Where the cats can get it?

  Once again she’d turned from him, passing back through the house to the lawn, which was surrounded by trees and shrubs and ferns. She picked up the bag and returned inside, to the bathroom. She scooped the duckling into the bath. It ran skittering in panic on the shiny white porcelain. Simon stood at the door, watching. She took out the mash and the water dish.

  Can you empty this into the compost, said Hannah, handing him the carry-bag. Have you got clean straw?

  Oh yes, I think I have. Claire gave me some stuff. And fresh mash. The duckling will need a heat source, I believe.

  When he returned with the carry-bag, she wiped it clean with paper towels and put it on a towel on the heated tiles in the bathroom, with the fresh straw that his aunt had provided. The carry-bag was made of strengthened plastic and its corners could be straightened rigidly to create a box. She leaned over the bath and cupped her hands around the noisy duckling, releasing it into the straw. Already there were two small heaps of mess in their bath. She brought out the disinfectant, turned on the tap and started swishing and scrubbing. She knew nothing, nothing at all, about ducklings. Nor about ducks of any description, except that they quacked and ate bread in parks.

  Later, she’d googled ‘ducklings’ and found: They must always have water. They have no teeth and can choke on their food if they don’t have water, as they can’t chew. Ducklings are messy and will slop their water everywhere, will walk in it. Don’t give them bread as they are not made for it. Ducklings might like the odd worm, but not too many. Too much protein and they will develop angel wings — wings that stick up. They eat greens and mash.

  So she’d placed a bowl for water in its box. A green china jam dish from the cupboard, the size of about a third of an orange, in the shape of a flower. When the duckling stood in it, the bowl contained its fluffiness perfectly. The petals opened around its yellow form like an eggshell.

  And that was several weeks ago. She had reluctantly agreed to look after the helpless creature until it was strong enough to fend for itself, before returning it to Te Awamutu or setting it free amongst other ducks in a park somewhere.

  She leaned over and picked a dandelion leaf growing from the base of a rock. So tiny was the duckling that she had to rip up the leaf. She dangled the narrow strips in front of its beak so it could snap them up.

  SOMETHING, SOMEONE, TO CARE FOR

  When her mother came to live with them after she became ill, Hannah would lurch from sleep, wondering whether she might have passed away overnight. There were times when the anxiety was so insistent that she was forced to get out of bed and pad down the stairs to stand at her mother’s door, listening for the soft snoring that filled the room.

  Once, confronted by silence, she eased open the door, crept in and stood by the bed. Moonlight filtered in through the curtains and settled around the shapes of the motionless bedclothes, across her mother’s face, the dark cavity of her open mouth, empty of breath. Hannah touched her cheek. Slapped her vigorously, calling. Suddenly her mother heaved and yelped, struggling in vain to sit up.

  Oh, oh, I’m sorry Mum, I . . . was just looking for your teeth. She grabbed the first reason — however ludicrous — that came into her head.

  Hannah, for heaven’s sake, what’s happening?

  Nothing, I’m sorry. I just, I was just checking, that you were all right. Ssssh, it’s OK. Go to sleep.

  I was asleep. Where are my teeth?

  They’re in the glass. It’s OK. I had a dream that you’d lost them.

  Are they there?

  Now, every morning, Hannah was awakened by her husband perfunctorily plodding around the house, his weight wrapped thickly around his middle, whereas hers returned to fill her head, unseen except for the pull of flesh from around her cheeks, her mouth. The weight of heavy deliberation.

  Her first task was to check on the little duckling in the carry-box in the bathroom, to make sure he hadn’t drowned in his water or died in his sleep from lack of whatever it was that ducklings needed that she hadn’t been able to offer.

  From the local pet shop she had bought supplies of straw to line his box, and special baby chook mash. Each day he ate a little more.

  When he spotted her, the duckling peeped an urgent staccato cod
e, for which she didn’t have the key, but it soon threaded its way from its helplessness to the part of her that had become habituated to caring for the helpless. She only had to pick him up to soothe him. All he desired was to nestle into somebody, to sleep with his head pushed into a fold of arm or flesh. All he really wanted, of course she realised, was a mother duck.

  Because of this, when she was at home the woman carried the duckling on her shoulder under her hair. If she was working at her desk, the ducking snuffled into her neck before settling to sleep. It was a strange companionable thing to have this downy ball rummaging through the blonde grassy shelter of her hair. At other times she spread a towel across her lap and he’d sleep there as well. Eventually, she noticed that, as long as she removed him from time to time, he didn’t poo when he was upon her. She supposed that, in the wild, this was Nature’s way of preventing mother ducks from being covered in the excrement of their brood.

  VENTURING OUT

  Gradually, as the weeks passed, the woman introduced the duckling to the outside world. She took him into the garden, looking for worms and pulling out weeds along the way. The duck kept close by her, almost dangerously so as she clambered on her knees around him while he pecked and skittered amongst the grass and plants. He wasn’t strong enough yet to tear at leaves, so she continued to do this for him. As she didn’t know which plants were poisonous for ducks, she guided him towards the dandelions and discouraged him from eating other vegetation. They discovered the fleas that erupted from the soil when she pulled away a brick or a piece of wood. He liked slaters and small cockroaches. The special purring chirrup he made when he ate rose in intensity whenever he made a bountiful find.

  The garden had been neglected. Its parched soil felt malnourished, screaming with thirst. When they first moved here, twenty-two years before, they’d been surrounded by a low hedge, a lawn filled with daisies, and with plums, lemons, figs and mandarins on the lawn out the back.